


Turn a Blind Eye to the Rumours

by VioletsAreNotBlue



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, The Gaang Learns How Zuko Got The Scar (Avatar), idk man i just work here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletsAreNotBlue/pseuds/VioletsAreNotBlue
Summary: When Katara speaks, she somehow says the right and the wrong thing: “Then he’ll forgive you. He will.”Zuko doesn’t know whether to scream or laugh. The noise that he makes is sort of both. “Let’s just say my family isn’t the forgiving type.”***Zuko assumes that the others knows how he got his scar. Because…well, doesn’t everyone? His friends have travelled all over the world; they must have heard the rumours. It’s just something he’s got to live with.Or, Zuko wildly overestimates how much Team Avatar knows about him, a conversation goes slightly differently, and the gaang plots a murder because that’s what good friends do.Updates Mondays!
Comments: 67
Kudos: 614





	1. Training Accident

Sokka asks first, because of course he does. Sokka can't _not_ ask.

Sure, he doesn't spring the question on Zuko within the first five minutes. Sure, he waits a respectable(ish) amount of time. But Sokka's spirits-damned curiosity always gets the better of him, which is why—about three nights after Zuko's joined Team Avatar—he jabs his chopsticks in Zuko's general direction and says, "So, how'd you get that thing? Was it, like, a bad sneeze, or…?"

Zuko nearly drops his bowl of rice and vegetables. "Uh…"

"Wait,” Toph says. "What thing?"

Everyone just blinks at her, and she doesn't react at all. It's too easy to forget that Toph can't actually see anything. Even Zuko forgets, and considering that he's pretty much half-blind, he really ought to remember.

"I've got a scar on my face," he says finally, and his voice is surprisingly level considering that he usually blows up when people so much as look at the scar wrong. _Uncle would be proud_.

Toph shrugs. "Oh, yeah, that. I know about that. I thought you had something interesting."

It's the first time someone has called Zuko's scar _boring_. It's a lot of things, but _boring_? That's a pretty fucking rude thing to say. Nothing about his scar or the story behind it is _boring_.

Anger flickers in Zuko's stomach. He takes a deep breath and ignores it.

"Wait," Aang says. "How did you know?"

Toph turns her empty eyes in Zuko's general direction, almost like she can see him. For some reason, Zuko's heart starts hammering like a panicked rabiroo's. He tries to tell himself that everyone already knows, that there's no way they can't have heard something, that there's no way that Toph will say anything that the others haven't heard or guessed—

(But what if she says it in a mean way? He know he'll have to shut up and take it, knows that he deserves all their scorn and more, but _sweet Agni_ he doesn't think he'll be able to keep the hurt off his face—)

"You guys mentioned it when you were talking about him," Toph finally says. She shrugs again, dismissing the very idea that she might not know about the scar. "Remember? Angry, ponytail, big ugly scar?"

Everyone winces slightly. They're all staring at Zuko now, clearly waiting for him to elaborate and tell them why he was angry, why he had that awful phoenix tail haircut, why there's a big ugly scar on his face. This is a test. They know what happened to him; they're waiting to see if he'll be honest.

He wants to be honest. He should be honest. Uncle would want him to be honest.

But he just can't do it.

Zuko peels his tongue off the roof of his mouth and mutters, "Training accident."

Miraculously, no one calls him out on the lie, and the conversation moves on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters will get longer I promise


	2. Burn Marks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the angst train toot toot
> 
> Quick note - this chapter is where the "implied/referenced child abuse" tag really applies. Nothing graphic, but if you'd like to skip it, stop reading at "(It was cruel and it was wrong.)" and pick up again at "I don't want to lose control and hurt you."
> 
> Also thank you, thank you for the lovely kudos and comments!! It really made me smile.

Even after they get a firebending masterclass from honest-to-Agni dragons, Zuko starts with the basics. He sits Aang down at the edge of the Western Air Temple before dawn and makes him wait to feel the fire rise inside him as the sun creeps over the horizon. He sets the end of a twig on fire—not a candle, but it does the trick—and makes Aang breathe in time with the flame. And—most awkwardly, but most importantly—he makes Aang talk about firebending. About why it scares him, why it worries him. About what he's learned from his old friend Kuzon, from Fire Nation soldiers, from Jeong Jeong (because of course Aang has trained under Jeong Jeong, even if it was only for a few disastrous days—why did Zuko expect the Avatar to have learned from anyone less brilliant?).

(Not for the first time, Zuko thinks that he's a pretty shitty excuse for a firebending teacher. The Avatar should be learning from a real master, and Zuko's always been a mediocre bender at best. But, he reasons, a mediocre teacher is better than no teacher at all, and right now, he's Aang's only option.)

Mostly, Zuko just tries to teach the way Uncle would. Because Uncle would know exactly how to teach the Avatar. He would know just what to say to make Aang's fear of fire disappear like smoke on a breezy day.

Aang hasn't been truly afraid of fire since they visited the Sun Warriors, but he's still hesitant. It's frustrating. The kid is _talented_. He could be punching out blue fire by the end of the year, if he wanted to. But he's still producing weak yellow fire blasts that never go too far or get too wild.

"It's just," he tells Zuko, when Zuko finally asks him why he's holding back, "I hate feeling like I'm not in control of my bending. Once the fire's out there, I don't know if I can keep it from destroying things."

"You can bend three other elements," Zuko says, exasperated. "And there's no one else around, and we're in a stone courtyard that hasn’t been used in a hundred years. Who is it going to hurt?"

Aang looks immensely guilty and gives Zuko the big guppy-puppy eyes. "It's just," he says again, "you've got that big scar from that training accident—"

"That's not going to happen to you." Zuko's heartbeat skyrockets at the thought, because, shit, Aang's about thirteen, isn't he? Zuko doesn't know when his birthday is, doesn't actually know how old Aang is, but he does know this: Aang's about thirteen, and he's going to be facing the Fire Lord. Just like Zuko did. And if Zuko doesn't get his shit together and turn Aang into a real firebender, then Aang's fight against Ozai will go even worse than Zuko's did.

Impossible as that might seem.

"Hey." Zuko sets his hands on Aang's shoulders and shakes him gently. "Look at me."

Aang looks, and he looks miserable. No, worse than that—he looks _defeated_. Like he's resigned himself to a fate that he hates.

Zuko shakes him again, more roughly. "What happened to me will _never_ happen to you." Zuko doesn't believe in making promises that he can't keep, but he knows in his bones that he would rather throw himself on his own swords than let Aang be denied honourable surrender in an Agni Kai.

(It was cruel and it was wrong.)

"I've seen your arms," Aang says sadly.

Zuko looks, more on instinct than anything. He knows what Aang is talking about. "Those weren't accidental."

"I know." Aang frowns and then, quick as lightning ( _no, not lightning, he's too gentle to be lightning_ ), grabs Zuko's hand and flips it to inspect his wrist. There's a hard light in his eyes as he looks over the telltale pink-white circles dotting the inside of Zuko's arm. "This wasn't you. The prints are too big. Somebody grabbed you and burned you. On purpose."

"My father did that." Spirits, Zuko hates talking about his father. If it were anyone else, he would shut the conversation down as fast as possible. But Aang is going to have to fight the Fire Lord, and right now, to him, the Fire Lord is just some shadowy abstraction of evil. Some warmonger far away on a throne whom Aang's never met, never spoken to, never even seen.

But Aang's not going to be fighting a shadowy abstraction. He's going to be fighting a flesh-and-blood man. And he deserves—he needs—to know what that man is like. Because if Aang gives Ozai even the tiniest sliver of mercy, Ozai will take it and twist it into a weapon.

Zuko knows he should tell Aang about his eye, his father, the Agni Kai, all of it. Not because he wants Aang to fight his battles for him—he really, _really_ doesn't, that wouldn't be right or fair—but because it's his responsibility to do whatever he can to impress upon Aang that Fire Lord Ozai is a monster. Aang says that all life is sacred, but for the sake of the world, he's going to have to make an exception.

But he can't bring himself to do it. Not yet.

Aang's fingertips brush over the burn marks. They've faded since Zuko left the Fire Nation; what were once clear prints are now scattered collections of circles and lines, the remnants of fingertips and broad palms. "Why would he do that?"

"He's a horrible person." There are more burns on Zuko's body that he hopes Aang doesn't know about, ones across his shoulders and back, places where Ozai and Azula casually seared him just because they could.

(That was also cruel. That was also wrong.)

"I don't want to lose control and hurt you," Aang says frankly. "Or anyone else."

"You won't," Zuko replies, equally frank. "You need control to deal out injuries like these."

"But what if—"

"Fire needs a master," Zuko snaps, "or else it _will_ run away from you. And people _will_ get hurt. What you're doing right now—messing around with these tiny little flames, not even trying to learn real control—that's what's really dangerous. You’re not going to learn anything by hiding in your comfort zone."

He doesn't miss the way Aang flinches at his outburst, and he can't stop the guilt from exploding in his stomach. He promised himself he wouldn't be like the firebending teachers at the palace. That he wouldn't get mad at a kid for being nervous or slow to learn.

Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose, hard, and sighs. He wishes Uncle were here. Uncle would know what to do. "Okay. You know that thing you do with Katara, where you pass the water back and forth?"

"Yeah?"

"We're gonna do that." Zuko backs up a few more feet and settles into his stance. "Every time it comes to you, make it bigger. I'll be right here, helping to control it. But you've got to move past your fear."

Aang groans, but he also conjures up a little yellow flame and tosses it to Zuko. He's a good student who wants to improve, and he's also just a good kid who genuinely wants to please the people around him. He trusts Zuko to be a good teacher. He’s willing to do scary things if he thinks it’ll help others. He’s thoughtful. Gentle. Smart.

Ozai's going to eat him alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is about as angsty as we're going to get around here :) Tune in next week for a slightly more lighthearted chapter


	3. Depth Perception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some chill fun today :D
> 
> And y'all - the level of kindness you are bestowing on this buffoonery is just. Just wonderful. Thank you <3 <3

After Azula (fucking Azula, why does she have to ruin everything, why is she so dead-set on making Zuko's life miserable when he's never done anything to her) chases them out of the Western Air Temple, they find themselves stuck in Appa's saddle for a while. It's a long flight to Ember Island—a couple days, at least.

Zuko tries to be patient, but patience has never been his strong suit. It helps that the others seem to have a routine that they fall into on these long-haul flights. After a few hours, Katara takes the reins so that Aang can fly alongside Appa and Momo. Toph clings to Sokka's arm and announces that she's going to take a nap because, "Once you've seen one cloud, you've seen 'em all."

"But you've never seen a cloud," Sokka points, and then Toph bends her meteor bracelet into a the shape of a hand and slaps him with it before curling into his side and conking out.

Sokka flops back and immediately starts pointing out funny-shaped clouds. Suki and Zuko exchange a look that clearly says, _Well, I guess cloud-watching is better than nothing_.

An hour later, they're still at it. Zuko can't remember the last time he spent this much time doing something this lazy. He almost wants to feel anxious about it, but...well, there's just no point in that, is there? It's not like he can do anything until they land. He might as well try to figure out which of the clouds hovering above them is supposed to look like a komodo-rhino.

"It's right _there_ ," Sokka emphasises. Zuko feels him shift, knows that he's raising his arm, but can't see anything more than a smudge of darkness swipe through the sky.

"If you say so, Captain Boomerang," Suki laughs.

Sokka huffs. "Okay, well, what do you see?"

"A pretty bird," she replies serenely.

Zuko squints. None of the clouds look remotely like birds. "Which one is it?"

"The real one?"

"I…" Zuko scans the sky carefully. One or twice, he thinks he sees something; but his depth perception's not great, and what he thinks could be a far-off bird could just as easily be a dark bit of cloud or old smoke from a Fire Nation airship. "Sorry. I don't see it."

"Really?" Sokka props himself up on his elbows, curious and concerned. "You can't see that thing?"

"I said I'm sorry," Zuko bristles.

A few weeks ago, Sokka would have jumped back from Zuko's outburst; now, he just spreads his hands in an I surrender gesture.

"Okay, okay. Sorry."

"Sorry," Zuko says again, more quietly. He gives his heart a moment to settle back down ( _don't freak out, don't freak out, you're not in trouble, he's not making fun of you_ ) and, after a few deep breaths, admits, "My depth perception's not that great."

"Yeah, we know," Suki quips.

Zuko jerks up onto his elbows and stares at them. "You do?"

"Uh…yeah." Sokka frowns, but he doesn't look angry, just puzzled and kind of concerned. "That eye barely opens, buddy. We kinda figured it didn't work so well."

"Yeah." It's the understatement of the year. "Not so well."

Sokka hesitates for a long, long time. "Must have been some training accident."

"Sokka!" Suki punches him on the arm, hard.

"It's okay," Zuko mutters, and the weird thing is, he means it. He knows that Sokka knows that it wasn't a training accident. Sokka's not _stupid_. He's seen Zuko rearrange the embers in a dying campfire with his bare hands. He knows that firebenders don't burn easily. And anyways, Sokka's travelled around the whole world, so there's no way he hasn't heard about what the Fire Lord did.

But he's still respectful, still gives Zuko space, still gently hints that he knows the truth while never pushing Zuko to talk about it. And Zuko finds that he doesn't mind that Sokka knows the truth, even if Sokka didn't learn the truth on Zuko's terms.


	4. Family Portraits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today we're being short and angsty, as god intended
> 
> Thank you thank you for all your kind comments and kudos!!

Returning to Ember Island is weird and kind of depressing. Katara just wants to be alone for a while, so the gang leaves her to parse through her thoughts while the rest of them tear through the royal holiday home. It's not every day you get to snoop through the Fire Lord's stuff.

Zuko should not have let the others run around unsupervised. They're too nosy for their own good, and Agni help him, they've found baby pictures.

Even _Toph's_ losing it, and Toph can't even see. She's shrieking with laughter out in the garden as Sokka describes the family portraits that he managed to get his grabby little hands on.

"—Azula's face is basically a circle," he's explaining. "And _Tui and La_ , there isn't a hint of crazy in her eyes. And Zuko is—he's gotta be, like, four? Five? His hair is in this tiny little ponytail that's pretty much just a puffball. And their mom is—wow, really pretty, actually. I mean, I'm guessing that's the Fire Lady 'cause of the crown—aww, look at this one, look how big and sad Zuko's eyes are, he looks like a kicked guppy-puppy…"

There's a lot of cooing from Suki and Aang. Zuko doesn't remember that portrait being painted, and he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to think about what he and Azula could have been. Doesn't want to wonder if his mom is alive or dead. Doesn't want to think about why he looked so sad in that picture.

He just snorts some more steam into his dishwater and focuses on washing up. They don't actually need clean dishes, but Zuko needs something to distract himself from the fact that they're in one of his family's homes. The kitchen looks like it's been abandoned. The cupboards are full of neatly-stacked pots and bone china dishes and spices that haven't seen daylight in over ten years. It's like the family who had once lived here just up and vanished one day.

_Well, that's pretty much what happened_ , Zuko thinks dully as he presses a hot palm to a plate. It dries in an instant. A little trick he picked up at Pao's, back when sneaky firebending late at night was all he could get away with. He has to be careful with it, though—unlike Pao's dishes, these are fancy Fire Royalty ones that will break if they get too hot.

Another shout of laughter bursts through the open kitchen window as Sokka produces another portrait. Agni, how many of those things did Zuko forget to burn? "And here we have…more baby Zuko!" Sokka waves the portrait around and then pauses. "No, wait, that's some other kid."

"No, that's Zuko," Toph says.

As usual, it takes Sokka a minute to figure out that she's joking. The others have a good laugh at his expense, and then they huddle around the picture. It's probably of Lu Ten.

Zuko misses Lu Ten. Misses Uncle. Misses what his family could have been.

Sokka shuffles the portraits around. The next bit of conversation is hard to hear over the swishing of water and clinking of dishes, but if Zuko tips his head just right, he can catch Suki murmuring, "Kind of weird to see him without the scar, huh?"

"Yeah," Sokka says. Is it Zuko's imagination, or does he sound…kind of sad? "Makes you wonder when he got it."

Zuko breaks a teacup without meaning to, cuts his hand, and starts cursing. It's enough to grab the others' attention. When they come over to see what the fuss is about (and, in Toph's case, congratulate Zuko on calling a broken cup a _shit dog-fucking bitch_ _of a motherfucker_ ), they leave the portraits behind.

Which is good, because Zuko's pretty sure he couldn't handle thinking about what he might have looked like, what he might have been like, if his father hadn't burned and banished him.


	5. The Ember Island Players

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is angst time my dudes are y'all ready to get fucked uppppp
> 
> As always, thank you for your kudos and sweet comments <3

The biggest problem with Zuko's scar isn't that it's messed up his skin or his senses. It's not that his depth perception is screwed, or that his vision is smudgy, or that his hearing is pretty much fucked. He's learned to more or less accept those things. He can work around them.

What he can't work around is that there's pretty much no way to hide the scar. The incredibly big, incredibly distinctive scar that the incredibly (in)famous traitorous crown prince of the Fire Nation got from his even more incredibly (in)famous father. 

Zuko can take steps to hide it. He wears his hair long, lets it flop over the left side of his face (it's not like he uses his left eye much, anyways). At night, he can justify throwing his hood up and going into town with his friends. But hanging out in the town square during the day is out of the question. It's the height of summer, and people are going to wonder why someone would wear a hooded robe in the midday heat.

So Zuko pretty much sticks close to "home," if the Fire Lord's holiday house can ever be called that again, and figures that he'll just stay there until it's time for Aang to fight the Fire Lord. There's pretty much fuck-all he can do to hide the scar, and he's not about to jeopardise the team's safety for a few hours of fun, so. That's that.

Or at least, that's what he thought, until one morning when Suki busts into his room. "Are you ready to get out of this joint?"

"And go where?" Zuko asks dryly.

"To the market. With us."

Zuko just raises his remaining eyebrow and waits for the copper coin to drop. "You mean the market that's covered in wanted posters of my face?" They had found the posters on their first night on Ember Island. Zuko, apparently, is wanted alive or dead by the Fire Lord. The others were horrified.

(Zuko hasn't told them that if it comes to it, he'd prefer to be dead. Dead is bad, but alive gets him handed over to Azula.)

"Your face, yeah," Suki confirms, and holds up a little red bag. Something inside it clinks softly. "But what if I told you that I could give you a different face for a few hours?"

"Please stop being cryptic, it's freaking me out."

Suki snorts. "Whatever, Crown Prince Grumpy Guts." She tips the bag out on the bed with a flourish.

Huh. It's…makeup. Zuko recognises the little brushes and pots; they look similar to what Mai uses to paint those sharp lines onto her eyelids, albeit with a lot less gilding on the packaging. Suki's gotten her hands on several jars of creams and powders—some very pale, some very dark. They're the colour of his skin and hair, and something inside Zuko lurches when he realises that she must have planned this out. He's not sure if it's trepidation or gratitude. Maybe it's both.

Suki seems to read his jumbled emotions perfectly, because she puts a gentle hand on his arm. "Hey. You don't have to. I understand if you don't want anyone touching it." The word hangs heavy in the air between them as her eyes trace over it, taking in every inch of angry flesh. "I just thought—you're probably sick of hiding out in the house when the rest of us can run around the island all we want. And, not to brag, but I'm almost as good with a makeup brush as I am with a sword."

Zuko considers this for a moment. He's seen how good she is with a sword. And he is pretty sick of hiding, even if it is in a spacious royal residence. "Yeah, okay. Let's try it."

* * *

Suki is a fucking genius. That's all there is to it. She fusses with her brushes and creams and powders for the better part of an hour, and when she finally steps away, Zuko almost looks normal again. She's completely covered up the scar, and she's done some kind of magic trick that makes his left eye look a little bigger, a little more like his right one. She's even painted on a new eyebrow. He looks…good. Not perfect, but really, really good. 

The others ooh and aah as Suki twirls her brushes smugly, and then they all walk to the Ember Island market together. The whole experience feels unreal. It's been years since Zuko was able to walk down the street and not be stared at. In fact, he's not sure he's ever been able to do that. Before his banishment, he was a prince, and princes don't exactly stroll through the market with their friends. They get carried from one important place to the next in palanquins, carefully sheltered from common eyes.

But Zuko's basically a commoner now, and he actually really likes it. Being a refugee sucked, but just living like your average, run-of-the-mill Fire Nation citizen is pretty okay. They're wandering through the market towards the town square, and Zuko's carrying a basket of slightly overripe fruit that they got for cheap, and Sokka's quietly fistfighting with Toph in a way that Zuko's learned is not cause for concern, and it's nice. It's peaceful and only a little weird and just really nice.

"So…?" Suki falls into step beside him, hands clasped behind her back. "How're you liking the face?"

Zuko doesn't even try to hide his enthusiasm. "It's _great_ ," he blurts. He knows he shouldn't touch the makeup, but he can't help brushing his cheek with his fingertips, just lightly, just once. His skin almost feels soft. "Did you see that fruit merchant's face when I took the basket? He barely looked at me! And not like he was _trying_ not to look," he adds hastily. "It was like he didn't care what I looked like at all."

He had forgotten what it was like to be so boring. He could get used to this.

Suki beams at him. There's just a hint of sadness in her eyes, and Zuko's willing to put that down to empathy. "Well, anytime you want the royal treatment, you know where to find me."

Neither of them misses the way Zuko flinches.

"Are you okay?"

Zuko responds way too quickly. "I'm fine! Everything's fine. Everything's better than fine, it's great, you're great—"

"Well, I won't argue with that." Suki looks like she wants to say more, but that's the point when cheering erupts from down the street. Aang, of course, shoots off to see what's going on; and the rest of them don't have much choice but to follow.

They walk out of the narrow market street and into the town square, where a cheerful crowd has gathered around a small, makeshift stage. Twirling across it are two of the Ember Island Players: A petite woman dressed as Aang, and a scowling man as Zuko.

"Oh, great," Katara mutters, as "Zuko" yells about honour and throws a fistful of red ribbons at a laughing "Aang." "Those morons again."

Toph cackles like a damned maniac. Zuko groans. The Ember Island Players are hot garbage; he's known this since he was a kid. But _The Boy in the Iceberg_ is truly the worst thing they've ever done. It's a bad play put on by a bad acting troupe, and the fact that Zuko has to watch any of it more than once proves that there's no justice in life.

He doesn't remember this fight scene from the play; either it's something new they made up for this publicity stunt, or the play was just so bad that his brain has erased all memory of it.

Everything about the scene is beyond awful, but Zuko can't stop staring. "Zuko's" papier-mâché scar looks even stupider up close. Why is it on the right? There are wanted posters of Zuko's face hanging on a notice board just a few yards away. Who the fuck was in charge of the costumes? Did they honestly not know, or do they just not care? Or is this a deliberate choice, a way of disrespecting what Zuko went through?

A smiling man holding a bunch of tickets pops up in front of Zuko. "Come see _The Boy in the Iceberg_! Showings every night this week!"

"Um…no?" Zuko ducks away on instinct, turning the right side of his face to the man. The man pouts, shrugs, and moves on.

Zuko blinks for a moment, amazed that that worked. "Huh."

"What's the matter?" Sokka asks dryly. "You don't want to sit through another two hours of ribbon dancing?"

"That guy didn't recognise me," Zuko says quietly. He looks from the ticket vendor to the actor on stage and back. Yeah, the guy playing "Zuko" is pretty bad, but he's still got that big papier-mâché scar. And yeah, Zuko's makeup is pretty good, but when you get up close, you can still see that the left side of his face is pretty fucked up.

"That's 'cause Suki's a genius." Sokka's chest puffs up. It's kind of endearing, how proud he is of his girlfriend. Suki could have done the worst job in the world, and Sokka would still be beyond proud of her. "And anyways, why would he recognise you? He probably thinks you look like that guy." He jabs a thumb at the stage, where "Aang" and "Zuko" are suddenly both cowering from some unknown danger.

Zuko watches as a heavily made-up actress climbs onto the stage, announces that she is Princess Azula, and starts hurling pale blue ribbons everywhere. A cheer swells from the crowd as she chases the other two actors around. "Zuko" loses his footing, and the papier-mâché scar falls off his head and rolls away. He scrambles to catch it.

And it all suddenly seems so _unfair_ —unfair that this third-rate actor can slap some red paper on his face for a few hours and then take it off again, unfair that some stage hand can decide that it doesn't actually matter which side the scar is on, unfair that some hack playwright can reduce every inch of Zuko's suffering down to a few campy lines about _honour_ , unfair that a crowd of Fire Nation citizens can cheer at the thought of Azula going on the warpath and killing her brother, unfair that a ticket vendor can look Zuko dead in the eye and not even realise that he's staring Fire Lord Ozai's cruelty right in the face.

Zuko has a sudden, wild urge to scrub the makeup off and get on the stage. For the first time in his life, he wants strangers to stare. He wants them to gasp and recoil in horror. He wants little kids to burst into tears when he starts yelling.

He just wants the Fire Nation to square up to the fact that they're being led by a monster.

As if reading his thoughts, Sokka winces. "Hey, you wanna get out of here?"

Zuko really, really does.

* * *

He doesn't disguise the scar again, and Suki doesn't offer.


End file.
